Note 55 — Chapter IV · JESUS AS THE MESSIAH.1

Hence others have made a distinction between the moral and the ritual law, and referred the declaration of Jesus that he wished not to abrogate the law, to the former alone, which he extricated from a web of trivial ceremonies, and embodied in his own example.55 But such a distinction is not found in those striking passages from the Sermon on the Mount; rather in the νόμος and προφῆται, the law and the prophets, we have the most comprehensive designation of the whole religious constitution of the Old Testament,56 and under the most trivial commandment, and the smallest letter of the law, alike pronounced imperishable, we cannot well understand anything else than the ceremonial precepts.57